Illamasqua has slowly made headway into Canadian markets via Sephora with their nail polish, but as any Illamasqua fan will know, the rest of their make-up line is sadly unavailable here. If you're like me and are slightly addicted to shopping online at Sephora, you'll know that Illamasqua items are marked as "Canada restricted," so they won't ship their items here. Last time I had checked Illamasqua's website, shipping to Canada costed an arm and a leg, and it just wasn't worth it — I just waited to go to NYC to pick up their products. But being the beauty masochist I am, I decided to look up their new collection on their site to add items to my ever-growing wishlist. And that's when I found out that there's now free international shipping for orders over £75 (the current conversion rate makes that around $120 CAD). So, I obviously put in an order. And it arrived two days later, I kid you not. Anyway, this post features the three lipsticks I ended up ordering. Each lipstick is housed in shiny black plastic square packaging, contains 4 grams of product, and retails for £15.50 or $22.
Eurydice, Liable, and Welt
Eurydice, Liable, and Welt
Eurydice is a medium bright, almost fluorescent, fuchsia pink in a matte finish. It is a new shade from their Human Fundamentalism collection for Spring 2012. It has a very dry texture, so it does pull and skip when being applied. It reminded me a lot of MAC's Retro Matte finish, actually (e.g. Ruby Woo). It does, however, have high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. The wear time is also very long; I would say at least six hours before fading, and this colour definitely stains the lip, which makes wear time appear even longer. It is lighter and less cool-toned than MAC Girl About Town, and is less cool-toned than YSL #10 Provocative Pink Rouge Volupté.Liable is a medium-dark bright reddened orange in a matte finish. It is a new shade from their Human Fundamentalism collection for Spring 2012. It has a very dry texture, so it does pull and skip when being applied. It reminded me a lot of MAC's Retro Matte finish, actually (e.g. Ruby Woo). It does, however, have high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. The wear time is also very long; I would say at least six hours before fading, and this colour definitely stains the lip, which makes wear time appear even longer. It is quite similar to MAC Lady Danger, and very slightly less orange than MAC So Chaud.Welt is a medium-dark cool-toned muted magenta pink in a matte finish. It is a permanent shade. It has a very creamy texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. The wear time is also very long; I would say at least six hours before fading, and this colour definitely stains the lip, which makes wear time appear even longer. It is more muted and more purple-toned than MAC Girl About Town, and much brighter and more pink than MAC Craving.
I absolutely love, love, love these colours, but I was definitely disappointed at the formula for Eurydice and Liable. I'm not sure if they're limited edition or not, but they were released with Illamasqua's Human Fundamentalism collection a couple months ago, and they were both dry, stiff, and kept tugging on my lips so it was harder to get them to look even. I sincerely hope that's not what all of their future lipstick shades will feel like, because Illamasqua is known for their creamy, smooth matte lipsticks. Welt had the best formula of the three, and is exactly the way I expect Illamasqua's lipsticks to be.
These lipsticks look really nice. If you hadn't mentioned that the first two of them are a bit dry, I wouldn't have noticed that from the swatches.
ReplyDeleteI've barely bought anything from Illamasqua - I have their Pure Pigment in Alluvium (that I need to actually use), 1 eyeliner known as Fat Pencil in Fickle (bronzey shade), and a blush in the color Beg.
The colours are definitely gorgeous and they look good in the swatches, but the first two colours required quite a bit of dragging back and forth to get them to look like that. :( You can tell that the first two have a much more chalky matte finish, whereas the last swatch has that slight sheen to it from the creamier consistency.
DeleteDo you have access to Illamasqua in-store over there? I am dying to try out more of their products!!! I have three blushes and like, ten lipsticks... but none of their eye products. Their eyeshadows look SO GORGEOUS... I may have to make another order, lol!
No, unfortunately we don't have Illamasqua here :( But they ship for about 7.5 GBP I think, that's how I got my Fat Pencil and Pure Pigment. The blush I got in Sephora, New York.
DeleteTheir eyeshadows do look good but I noticed a large portion of them are matte. I did like this quad they made for Human Fundamentalism which is a quad of regular brown/gold/black shades..I was itching to get it but it's kind of pricey. Maybe next time ;) I've tried one of their Rubber finish nail polishes, didn't like the formula. Found it quite strange.
Illamasqua is currently offering free international shipping for orders over 45 pounds!!! See, I'm totally itching to get some of the bright eyeshadows from Human Fundamentalism. Illamasqua does matte really well, it's like their "thing." All of their lipsticks are matte, as well! But it's hard to find really good matte bright eyeshadows that go on smoothly and are really pigmented with good colour pay-off. MAC has some great bright matte PRO shades, but not as many as Illamasqua. I'm very tempted to pick some up on my next order... with maybe a new blush or two... :)
DeleteDid you get their blushes??????? I have one cream blush in Rude and it's fantastic!
ReplyDeleteLove the colours here. They look matte but not too matte, if you know what I mean. My lips are dryer than the desert so I can't fathom matte lips ever... no, not even with balms and prepping.
I didn't get any blushes with this order, but I may add some powder blushes to my next order (they're offering free shipping on orders over 45 pounds right now). I have three blushes that I bought in NYC a few years ago and the pay-off is phenomenal, so I obviously need to try more... I'm not a huge fan of cream blush in general, though, because I hate the feel of it on my skin. :P That's why I use powder foundation instead of liquid!
DeleteI find that the first two shades here are EXTREMELY MATTE (if you've ever gone to MAC and swatched Ruby Woo lipstick, the texture is exactly like that) and are quite drying, but I find that most of Illamasqua's lipsticks go on really smooth and creamy, despite the fact that they're matte!
I've ordered a couple times from the direct site, both times because they had a promo going on :P I was speaking with the PR rep for the brand though, and she seemed to indicate that not all is lost here in Canada forever - fingers crossed something good happens soon!! :)
ReplyDeleteNow, on to the shades...I absolutely adore what you picked up, though I can even see in the swatches what you mean about the first two being dry. That's a shame, because they're lovely! Hopefully you can manage to make these work somehow Denise!
I hope Illamasqua comes here soon. :( It just doesn't make sense to me that they could be carried at Sephora in the US, but not in Canada!
DeleteThere's a promo going on their site right now, however... ;) I may have to put in an order before it ends, lol.
So I have been wearing these lipsticks for the past week or so, and they're definitely wearable (and look phenomenal!) as long as I pat on some lip balm after I apply them (Jack Black's lip balm works wonders!). It has to be the emollient kind of lip balm, though, none of the waxy stuff (like Burt's Bees or EOS). It looks moist and plump afterwards. :)